Adolf Hitler in popular culture

"The Third Reich", 1934 painting by the anti-Nazi exile German painter Heinrich Vogeler.

Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was the leader of the National Socialist German Workers' Party and Chancellor of Nazi Germany from 1933 (Führer from 1934) to 1945. Hitler has been represented in popular culture ever since he became a well-known politician in Germany. His distinctive image was often parodied by his opponents. Parodies became much more prominent outside Germany during his period in power. Since the end of World War II representations of Hitler, both serious and satirical, have continued to be prominent in popular culture, sometimes generating significant controversy.[1][2] In many periodicals, books, and movies, Hitler and Nazism fulfill the role of archetypalevil.[3][4] This treatment is not confined to fiction but is widespread amongst nonfiction writers who have discussed him in this vein.[5][6][7][8] Hitler has retained a fascination from other perspectives; among many comparable examples is an exhibition at the German Historical Museum which was widely attended.[9]

In Germany, before he came to power, Hitler was often portrayed satirically in newspaper cartoons and propaganda by political enemies. The photomontagistJohn Heartfield regularly depicted Hitler in absurd ways in his anti-Nazi poster designs. When the Nazis came to national power in January 1933, Hitler was mostly depicted as a god-like figure, loved and respected by the German people, as shown for example in Triumph of the Will, which Hitler co-produced. An exception was the German movie Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse (The Testament of Dr. Mabuse) from 1933, which was banned by the Nazi propaganda ministry. Many critics consider Fritz Lang's depiction of a homicidal maniac masterminding a criminal empire from within the walls of a criminal asylum to be an allegory of the Nazi ascent to power in Germany.[10]

Outside Germany Hitler's persona was often parodied. George Bernard Shaw's 1936 play Geneva includes a caricature of Hitler as Herr Battler, appearing at an international tribunal with his friends Signor Bombardone (Mussolini) and General Flanco (Franco). There are numerous cartoons satirising his distinctive features, such as those by David Low.

Outside Germany, Hitler was made fun of or depicted as a maniac. There are many notable examples in contemporary Hollywood films. Several Three Stoogesshorts, the first being You Nazty Spy (1940), the very first Hollywood work lampooning Hitler and the Nazis in which the boys, with Moe Howard portraying "Moe Hailstone", as the Hitler character, are made dictators of the fictional country Moronica. This short in particular implies that business interests were behind Hitler's rise to power, and was said to be Moe Howard's favorite Stooges short subject. A sequel was released a year later entitled I'll Never Heil Again. This one illustrated the disagreements between Hitler and the League of Nations. In other Three Stooges shorts, Hitler is referred to as "Schicklgruber" in reference to his father Alois Hitler's birth name. Charlie Chaplin made fun of Hitler as "Adenoid Hynkel," the buffoonish dictator of Tomainia, in his 1940 movie The Great Dictator. This is one of the most recognizable Hitler parodies.

Apart from Hollywood films, Hitler was the subject for several comic booksuperheroes who battled Hitler directly or indirectly in comics published during World War II. Superheroes that fought Hitler include Superman, Captain America, The Shield, and Namor the Sub-Mariner. The first Captain America comic showed Captain America hitting Hitler on the jaw. Captain America's archenemy, Red Skull, was established as being an apprentice to Hitler. In Superman vol 1 #15 the dictator Razan appeared, who attempted to invade a nearby democratic nation. Superman defeated his army, and Razan was shot while trying to escape.

After his death, Hitler continued to be depicted as incompetent or foolish. However, while Hitler's anti-Semitic policies were well known during his lifetime, it was only after his death that the full extent of the Holocaust and other Nazi genocides became known.[13] This, coupled with Hitler no longer being a threat, has meant that the way he is depicted in popular culture has resulted in Hitler being personified as evil.

The 2003 television film Hitler: The Rise of Evil stars Robert Carlyle in the title role and depicts a semi-fictional account of Hitler's life from childhood to the new position of Führer und Reichskanzler, completing his ascension to full totalitarian, dictatorial power in Germany. However, the film has been criticized for its many inaccuracies in portraying Hitler's temperament and related events, to the point that it has been likened to fiction.

In the novel Young Adolf (1978) by English author Beryl Bainbridge, the 23-year-old Hitler travels to Liverpool to visit his English relatives.

The 1962 short story Genesis and Catastrophe: A True Story by Roald Dahl portrays an unhappy husband in Austria in 1889 whose wife is about to give birth. The father is pessimistic about the child's survival as their previous three children have all died in infancy. Rebuked by the doctor for his gloominess, his confidence is boosted by his wife's conviction that their new baby, a boy, will survive. The father names his newborn son Adolf Hitler.

In Harry Turtledove's Worldwar series, World War II is interrupted when Earth is attacked by space aliens known as The Race. As a result, Hitler and the Third Reich itself exist in various alliances both with and against the Allies and the aliens.

In the controversial novella The Portage to San Cristobal of A.H. by George Steiner Hitler survives the end of the war and escapes to the Amazon jungle, where he is found and tried by Nazi-hunters 30 years later. Hitler's defence is that since Israel owes its existence to the Holocaust, he is really the benefactor of the Jews.

In the Doctor WhoPast Doctor Adventures novel The Shadow in the Glass, the Sixth Doctor and Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart discover the existence of a Fourth Reich led by Hitler's son, Eva Braun having been smuggled away to give birth and another woman killed in her place. At the conclusion of the novel the Fourth Reich's threat is ended when Hitler's son forces the Doctor to take him back in time to meet his father, only for Hitler to shoot his son in the head in the belief that he is nothing but a madman. The Seventh Doctor also met Hitler in the Virgin New Adventures novel Timewyrm: Exodus, where Hitler was possessed by the powerful being known as the Timewyrm from pre-WW2 to 1940, learning to control its power before the Doctor tricked Hitler into banishing it by claiming that it was doing nothing to help him when in reality the Timewyrm's power was all that kept Hitler remotely stable in the early days of the war.

In Tim Jorgenson's novel Kolossus, set in 1953, Hitler is portrayed as conniving to designate the next Pope, his favored candidate being a (fictive) American papal nuncio who is willing to provide cover for a Nazi plot to steal an American atomic bomb.

In the novel The Berkut, Hitler is revealed to have faked his own death after staging an elaborate deception, making it appear as if he had Parkinson's disease, and then having a double apparently commit suicide in his place. Hitler escapes from Berlin with the aid of an SS-colonel and is eventually tracked down by a Russian squad of secret agents. He is captured alive, taken to Moscow, and kept in a cage beneath the Kremlin for Joseph Stalin's amusement. Immediately before Stalin's death, Hitler is executed, knowing that he has not survived Stalin.

A similar approach is taken by Ira Levin in The Boys from Brazil, where it is revealed that Hitler conspired with Josef Mengele to clone himself prior to his death. Using Hitler's blood, Mengele begins a project in the 1960s to clone several Hitlers and distribute the Hitler infants to families similar to that of the original. Mengele later attempts to recreate the sociological environment of Hitler's youth, beginning with killing the fathers of all the Hitler clones. Mengele's plan is to eventually create a second Hitler who will come of age in the 21st century and establish the Fourth Reich.

Forged journals of Hitler, known as the Hitler Diaries, were published in West Germany by the magazine Stern in 1983.

The Robert Ludlum novel The Apocalypse Watch meets its climax with the destruction of a Fourth Reich set in the 1990s, and the discovery of an ancient Adolf Hitler controlling a massive multinational corporation.

In the novel Making History (1996) by Stephen Fry, a history professor and a young student manage to invent a method of sending objects back through time and they send a male contraceptive pill back to 1888, placing it into the drinking water in the well at the Braunau am Inn so that Hitler's father will be rendered infertile, preventing his son Adolf from ever being born. However such meddling in history has unexpected repercussions.

In the novel The Medusa Amulet by Robert Masello, protagonist David Franco discovers that Hitler has survived into the present day under the alias Auguste Linz thanks to the Medusa Amulet, an ancient mirror created with water taken from the lair of the GorgonMedusa that renders the user immortal if they see their reflection and the full moon in the amulet at the same time. Despite the amulet's power restoring him to health, Hitler is defeated when Franco decapitates him in a fight, his still-living body and head subsequently being destroyed when his house explodes.

Is the primary antagonist in the Sci-Fi/Adventure novel The Crisis Pendant by Charlie Patterson. Set in the near future, a squad of U.S. marines are thrust into a post-apocalyptic world where Nazism has been reborn into the century of technological advancements and redeveloped by a resurrected Hitler.

Hitler is also the main 'protagonist' in the German dark satire novel Er ist wieder da ("Look Who's Back") by Timur Vermes, published in 2012. Hitler is shown to somehow reawaken, alive again, in Berlin of 2011 and, since no one believes him to really be Hitler, becomes popular on YouTube as a Hitler impersonator.[16][17]

Lavie Tidhar's novel, A Man Lies Dreaming (2014) features a thinly-disguised Hitler (going by the nom de guerre 'Wolf' - which Hitler used during the 1920s) as a down-at-heels private eye in a 1930s London, in a world where the communists, rather than the Nazis, came to power in Germany. Wolf's nightmarish journey - described in terms of pulp fiction - turns out to be the hallucination of a concentration camp inmate.

"Adolf Hitler's Last Days": from the BBC series Secrets of World War II, the episode tells the story of Hitler's last days

The Nazis: A Warning From History (1997): six-part BBC TV series on how cultured and educated Germans accepted Hitler and the Nazis. Historical consultant was Ian Kershaw

Im toten Winkel – Hitlers Sekretärin (Blind Spot: Hitler's Secretary) (2002): a 90-minute interview with Traudl Junge. Made by Austrian Jewish director André Heller shortly before Junge's death from lung cancer. Junge recalls the last days in the Berlin bunker. Clips of the interview were used in Downfall.

Undergångens arkitektur (The Architecture of Doom) (1989): documentary about the National Socialist aesthetic as envisioned by Hitler

Das Fernsehen unter dem Hakenkreuz (Television Under the Swastika) (1999): documentary by Michael Kloft about the use of television in Nazi Germany for propaganda purposes from 1935 to 1944

Atom Blond (1996): a documentary detailing Hitler's order regarding the purification of the German people through urination upon their heads, causing the birth of the blond-haired gene; directed by Quentin Tarantino

British comedian Spike Milligan appeared as Hitler on several occasions in his TV comedy series Q....

"Mr. Hilter" (sic) is portrayed by John Cleese in a Monty Python sketch as staying with his friends Ron Vibbentrop (Von Ribbentrop) and Reg Bimmler (Himmler) at a boarding house in Somerset and being introduced to other guests by the landlady as they plot the reunification of Taunton and Minehead.[21][22]

Heil Honey I'm Home! was a controversial 1950s-styled British sitcom about Hitler and Eva Braun living in suburbia, with Jewish next door neighbors. Eight episodes were produced, but only one, the pilot, was ever broadcast (in 1990), as both television executives and the viewers alike thought the show in deplorably bad taste.

In the Australian satirical comedy show The Chaser's War on Everything, comedian Andrew Hansen enters the offices at Foxtel dressed as Adolf Hitler to complain about the removal of the documentary Hitler's War by David Irving, claiming "you can't just kill something off because you disagree with it! I did, but you can't!"[23]

In the British BBC sci-fi comedy TV show, Red Dwarf episode "Meltdown", the main characters find a matter changing device that allows them to travel anywhere in space. They end up traveling to a planet called Wax-world (a Wax-Droid theme park that has been abandoned for millions of years, during which time the droids have broken their programming and now the inhabitants of Villain World are waging war against Hero World). Two of the crew end up materializing in Villain World at their main command, the Third Reich. In the command room are Hitler and his high command which capture the two men. In another episode, "Timeslides", a mutated developing fluid creates photographs that the crew can walk into, Lister enters a photograph of Hitler and accidentally saves his life when he steals Hitler's briefcase, which contains a bomb (a reference to the July 20 Plot).

In series 1 of the British alternative comedy series Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle, Hitler (played by Paul Putner) appears in black & white newsreel-style footage making a speech in which he sarcastically derides political correctness.

In the [adult swim] show Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Hitler appeared as a balloon who hires Frylock to create an airborne virus to be compressed into balloons to be passed out in children birthday parties, who fight's Hitler's balloon army after learning his identity. After Frylock shows Hitler that all of the actors/comedians he is a fan of are Jewish he moves his hatred from the Jewish people to the gays. Frylock pops him shortly afterwards.

Hitler also appears in the British television series Misfits, which features superpowers, one of which being time travel. An elderly Jewish Holocaust survivor uses the power to travel back in time and kill Hitler; he fails, and Hitler finds his mobile phone, allowing the Nazis to overthrow Britain. At the end, Kelly, a main character in the show, obtains the time travel power and returns to Nazi Germany to take the phone from Hitler.

Hitler also appears in the Australian television series Danger 5, about five international spies on a mission to kill Adolf Hitler.

In "The Man in the Bottle," a man (Luther Adler) who has been granted four wishes by a genie wishes himself to be a leader of a country who cannot be voted out of office, only to find he is Hitler and it is the end of World War II. He quickly uses his final wish to be restored to normal. In "He's Alive", Hitler's ghost appears to help a struggling Neo-Nazi (Dennis Hopper) gain more followers. In "No Time Like the Past," a time traveler (Dana Andrews) tries to assassinate Hitler in 1939 but is stopped when a suspicious maid brings the SS to his hotel room.

In an episode of the 2002 Twilight Zone entitled "Cradle of Darkness", another time traveler (Katherine Heigl) goes back in time to kill Hitler as an infant while disguising herself as the new housekeeper. She kidnaps the infant Hitler and leaps from a bridge, killing herself and the baby. A horrified housekeeper, who has been following her and had witnessed the murder, does not tell Hitler's parents because of fear of death as punishment, but rather bribes a gypsy to sell her baby. The baby is then returned to the Hitler household where he takes his place to become the Hitler that the world knew.

Hitler appears in the three-parter episode of Justice League entitled "The Savage Time," where he is overthrown and cryogenically frozen by Vandal Savage, Savage having learned how to win the war from his future self. After Savage is defeated by the Justice League, Hitler is thawed and reinstated as Germany's dictator. Throughout the story, many characters (including Hitler's own subordinates) often refer him being a tyrannical lunatic. In the animated series Code Monkeys, Hitler is also cryogenically frozen (in carbonite, in reference to Han Solo) and is kept secret by the Hitler family, and the Gamevision crew is invited there because of the game that Dave makes. Dave and Black Steve accidentally unfreeze Hitler, and they torture him by urinating on him. Hitler is then killed.

In the two-part episode Hitler's Secret Weapon in the British 1970s sci-fi series The Tomorrow People, Hitler is revealed to be not only still alive but an Alien metamorph, capable of brain-washing young people to obey his wishes. A previous first season episode, The Medusa Strain had indicated Hitler was a time traveler from the future named A.C. Pritchard.

In The Critic episode "Dial 'M' for Mother", title character Jay Sherman is rated worse than Hitler by a test audience, who say that Jay isn't as "warm or cuddly". Members of the test audience then ask if Hitler were "in a band". Another episode, "Eyes on the Prize," features a character named Adolph Hitmaker.

In the Doctor Who Season 6 Part 2 premiere, "Let's Kill Hitler", The Doctor is held at gunpoint and ordered to take a young River Song to kill Hitler. Ironically, interstellar cops were about to apprehend Hitler for his crimes when the TARDIS crashed through his office, knocking out the aliens and saving him. He gratefully thanks the Doctor and his companions, and the Doctor bluntly tells him it was totally unintentional. Rory Williams then forces Hitler to hide in a closet, much to his indignation.

In episodes of "The Preacher" in which Hitler is one of the main characters in Hell.

In the twelfth season of Supernatural, the episode "The One You've Been Waiting For" sees protagonists Dean and Sam Winchester confronting a group of Nazi mystics who had trapped Hitler's soul in a watch before his death, only to lose it after the war. The watch is eventually recovered in 2016, but after Hitler is reborn in the body of the cult leader, it is revealed that he has been driven insane by his decades of confinement, and is shot in the head by Dean in the final confrontation.

In the TV series Perversions of Science, the episode "The Exile" involves a scientist (played by Jeffrey Combs) who is arrested for killing people in his experiments. He is sentenced to exile - on Earth, where he lands in Germany of the 1920s. The prison commander (David Warner) doubts that one man can do very much damage, whereupon we learned that the exiled prisoner will become Adolf Hitler.

In episode 24 of Cyber Team in Akihabara, a picture of Hitler and many other historic photos are shown during Rosenkreuz's reunion with Crane Bahnsteik.

In the portuguese TV series Minstério do Tempo, Hitler (portrayed by actor Harald Rothermel) appears in episode 3, when the Nazis fid out about the existence of a Time Door in Convento de Cristo in Tomar, and try to use it to go into the future in order to change History.

In many different video games Hitler appears, but with varying significance and roles.

In Beyond Castle Wolfenstein, the goal of the game is to infiltrate Hitler's bunker and kill Hitler and his senior staff with a bomb, similar to the July 20 plot. Wolfenstein 3D features Hitler as the final boss of Episode 3. He battles first wearing a mechanical battlesuit, then later carries two miniguns after the suit is heavily damaged. In addition, the map features Hitler-clones with flamethrowers that can be found before the final battle.

In the game Call of Duty: World at War, at the end of a victorious multiplayer match when playing as the German Army, when the march song is played the background Hitler can also be heard saying during it "Vor uns liegt Deutschland, in uns marschiert Deutschland, und hinter uns kommt Deutschland!" Translated in English as "Germany lies around us, in us marches Germany, and behind us Germany follows!"

The point and click adaptation of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade features an interactive meeting between the player and Adolf Hitler. The player can ask Hitler to give him an autograph on a book or a free pass, or can punch Hitler (which results in Indiana's death).

The main antagonist in the NES game Golgo 13: Top Secret Episode is Smirk, a cyborg version of Hitler. When one of his clones is shot during the final boss fight, its head will fly towards the screen to attack the player, clearly resembling him.

In the Japanese version of the NES game Bionic Commando, the main character has to fight futuristic Nazis. The last boss of the game is Hitler, who is resurrected by evil scientists. In the US version of the game, the name of the boss was changed to Master-D, in order to appease Nintendo's censorship policies, although he still resembles Hitler. In the modern remake Bionic Commando: Rearmed, the same character appears and though still clearly resembling Hitler, is never named.

The idea of alternate reality is picked up for example in the PC video game series Command & Conquer: Red Alert. Here the world-renowned physicist Albert Einstein had traveled back in time and chronoshifted (or "deleted from time") Hitler before his rise to power. The resulting power vacuum led to the Soviet Union invading Europe with Joseph Stalin assuming a role very similar to Hitler's. Germany then joins the Allies in the battle against the Soviet Union, and the general who gives the player's orders in the video sequences is German. In the PC video game War Front: Turning Point, Hitler is killed in the early days of World War II. A new chancellor comes to power and under his rule, Operation Sea Lion succeeds and Nazi Germany successfully conquers Britain.

Hitler is represented, along with other historical World War II characters, in the Hearts of Iron PC series and in Assassins Creed 2 where he is depicted possessing a piece of eden.

Players can create and use "Hitler-like" Miis on the NintendoWii in certain games such as Wii Sports. However, Nintendo banned Hitler-like Miis, or Miis that are even named "Hitler", from playing online in Mario Kart Wii. The recent update on the Xbox 360 can have players create avatars that also can resemble Hitler. So far, Microsoft has not banned anyone from using Hitler-like avatars.

In the game Sniper Elite V2, with the "Assassinate the Führer" bonus mission, the player has the opportunity to kill Adolf Hitler. A similar mission appears as DLC in Sniper Elite 4.

In the game The Saboteur, excerpts from Hitler's speeches play over loudspeakers throughout a Nazi-occupied Paris during several cutscenes.

A conspiracy theory named In-Lakech in Persona 2: Innocent Sin claims that Hitler was smuggled out of Germany by his elite guard, the Last Battalion, and moved to Antarctica. Furthermore, he wields the Lance of Longinus, referred to as the Spear Of Destiny (which the real Adolf Hitler had an interest in possessing), and plans to raise the ship Xibalba from beneath Sumaru City and awaken the Bolontiku, who guided the evolution of apes to man and will guide the evolution of man to the ultimate being, "Idealian".

In EC Comics' Weird Fantasy #14 story Exile, Earth is revealed to be a penal planet where all people with the "evil" gene are sent and they are transporting their latest prisoner and speculating on his influence on the prison planet just as it is revealed he is Adolf Hitler.

DC Comics feature Hitler on several occasions. In Strange Adventures, in issue #3 (December 1950-January 1951), there is a story in which Hitler is captured by space aliens just before his attempted suicide. A fake corpse is left for the SS to find. As punishment for Hitler's crimes, he is imprisoned for life alone on a rocket ship which will travel through space until he dies (the rocket ship can automatically manufacture its own food for him); during his waking hours, he is forced to listen to an endless loop recording of all the speeches he has ever made. The character known as the Unknown Soldier, who first appeared in June 1966, kills Hitler, impersonates him for a short time, then pretends his death was a suicide. In Adventures of the Outsiders #33-35, a clone of Hitler is created by Baron Bedlam. Planning to give the clone the same persona as the original, Bedlam gives him a mentally retarded Jewish maid, several films of the Holocaust, and a handgun, Bedlam's intention being for the clone to embrace Nazism and ultimately murder the maid to "prove himself" as Hitler. Instead, the clone—realizing his connection to the atrocities he views— commits suicide. In DC Comics' Elseworlds imprint, The Golden Age, Hitler's brain is successfully transplanted into the brain pan of Dyna-Mite. Now pretending to be a superhero called Dynaman, he plots in resurrecting Nazi ideals with the aid of the Ultra-Humanite. He possessed a magical item, the Spear of Destiny, which gave him control over superpowered beings that entered Nazi territory, an explanation for why the Justice Society of America did not enter Berlin and end the war. In Fawcett Pre-Crisis comics he was a member of the Monster Society of Evil with Benito Mussolini and Hideki Tojo, and other Nazis like (List of Captain Marvel (DC Comics) enemies) Herr Phoul were other members of the Society. He was shown to have helped in the creation of super-strong Arayn supervillain Captain Nazi. In the Justice League episode "The Savage Time", Hitler makes an unnamed cameo. He is shown cryogenically frozen by Vandal Savage, who has replaced him as Fuhrer, not just of Germany, but the whole world. He is never named, but the character's identity is unmistakable.

In the comic book The Savage Dragon by Erik Larsen (published by Image Comics), it is revealed that Hitler did not die in 1945, but after a fight against Hellboy in Romania in 1952. His body ruined, the brain is transplanted to the body of a large gorilla. Suffering amnesia and calling himself Brainiape, the chimera possesses great psionic powers and joins the Chicago, IL criminal organization known as the Vicious Circle, eventually becoming its leader. He remembers his past only in 1996 when he encounters Hellboy again, alongside the Vicious Circle's enemy, the meta-talented policeman called Dragon. The ape body is killed, and it is revealed that Hitler's brain had mutated and could live unaided by any technology or host body, ambulatory on tiny legs.[25]

Marvel Comics' villain Hate-Monger is revealed to be the consciousness of Hitler transferred to a cloned body by Nazi scientist Arnim Zola. The original Hitler, rather than committing suicide, was confronted by the Human Torch and his sidekick Toro after Eva Braun committed suicide. The two heroes set Hitler ablaze as he attempted to set off a bomb. As he died, he commanded one of his loyal followers nearby to tell the world he had committed suicide. The clone is killed in Fantastic Four #21 when the Invisible Girl makes him hit his own troops with his hate-ray, causing them to shoot him for getting them into a battle with the Fantastic Four. At the time of his death he was planning to start wars using a ray which caused hatred and to which only he possessed the antidote to, having started with a South American country. He preached ideas of bigotry also while in America. In another story, Hitler is seen in the Hellish realm of the demon Mephisto.

In Weird War Tales #58 (1977) "Death of a dictator" Hitler kills a raving man dressed in rags before going into suspended animation in the belief history will repeat and he will be able to rebuild the Third Reich. The story ends with our Hitler with long hair being killed in exactly the same manner the raving man dressed in rags was. The final panel reveals that the scientist was all too correct in that history would repeat as our Hitler's killer looks exactly like he did originally and he is going to his suspended animation chamber and these events will replay themselves...forever.

From Hell by Alan Moore depicts Klara Hitler as having visions of the Holocaust during Adolf's conception.

In the Spanish comic series Hitler (1978), published in Spain by Mercocomic and in France by Elvifrance, Hitler fakes his death by using a double, escapes Germany along with Martin Bormann (both disguised as Russian soldiers), then suffers from amnesia and, of all things, becomes an agent of the KGB with the mission of hunting down Nazis. Later on in the story, he recovers his memory and ends up in an asylum for the mentally disturbed.[26]

The popular British comic strip Charley's War by Pat Mills which was published in Battle Picture Weekly 1979-1985 and portrayed the experiences of young British soldier Charley Bourne in the trenches of the Great War. The strip included a sequence of episodes in which the story's hero Charley and his unit are stationed opposite the regiment of young Lance Corporal Adolf Hitler in December 1917. Charley and Hitler fight hand-to-hand in one scene, nearly killing each other. Hitler is portrayed as a somewhat eccentric and scruffy soldier, ill-tempered but brave, albeit selfishly so.

Other examples of Hitler in comics includes Osamu Tezuka's mangaAdolf (Hitler is one of the three men named Adolf around which the story revolves), the Mexican comic book series Fantômas (in which a multi-part storyline titled "The Son of Hitler" has the son of Hitler and Eva Braun raise a Fourth Reich that conquers France) and Spriggan (Neo-Nazis use clones of Hitler in order to gain access to a hidden stash of ancient artifacts somewhere in Europe by using the Holy Grail in order for his soul to enter the clone and led the Neo-Nazi remnants to its locations).

Warner Bros. produced wartime cartoons which constantly parodied Hitler and his personality traits and quirks. Most (if not all) cartoons with Hitler and the Nazis as the antagonists ended up with the American hero cartoon character (such as Bugs Bunny or Daffy Duck) making a mockery out of Hitler and his people.

Many songs tell a story about Hitler one way or the other, for example "Gotterdammerung" by Stratovarius directly mentions the history of Hitler and the Nazi regime. Bowie has also been quoted saying "Hitler was the first rock star" and, at one time, wanted to direct a film based on the life of Heinrich Himmler. "Heads We're Dancing" by Kate Bush tells the story of a woman who dances all night with a charming stranger, only to discover the following morning that he is Adolf Hitler. TexasGroove metal band Pantera wrote and recorded a song called "By Demons Be Driven". It tells the story of how Hitler was plagued by paranoia and began to hate the Jewish people and religion. Australian band TISM's debut single was "Defecate on My Face", which was about Adolf Hitler's supposed coprophilia. Australian comedy troupe the Doug Anthony Allstars had a song called "Mexican Hitler", which told the story of what Hitler would have been like if he was born Mexican. It made an appearance in their television show, DAAS Kapital.[27] The song "Hitler as Kalki" by apocalyptic folk band Current 93 makes use of Savitri Devi's idea that Hitler was an avatar of the Hindu god Kalki. "Two Little Hitlers" by Elvis Costello, superficially a song about a loveless couple but reportedly a real-life reflection of the relationship between the singer and his producer Nick Lowe (who had previously recorded a song entitled "Little Hitler", the similarities leading to speculations about the origins of the later song) on the album Armed Forces. Antony and the Johnsons have released the song "Hitler in My Heart" on their debut in which the term "Hitler" is generally used as a metaphore for the bad within oneself - likewise in the song "Crack Hitler" by Faith No More from Angel Dust.

Parodied clips from the 2004 film Downfall have proliferated internationally via YouTube and other video sites.[28] The parodies replace the subtitles from the original movie with incorrect subtitles. The most frequently used clip is the scene where Hitler receives news of the advancing Red Army vastly outnumbering the forces commanded by Felix Steiner. They are subtitled with references to Hitler becoming angry over various facets of modern pop culture such as politics, online gaming, movies, television, music, sports and many other local or international events.

Footage and/or characters from other films, ranging from other depictions of Hitler in the likes of Inglourious Basterds or Hitler: The Last Ten Days, or even films that have little or nothing to do with Downfall, are also juxtaposed for humorous effect. A trend involving the use of computer-generated imagery or special effects, such as superimposing Hitler's head on various videos, are also starting to become popular.

On April 21, 2010, Constantin Film, the production and distribution company responsible for the film, initiated a massive removal of parody videos on YouTube.[31] This removal was criticized by digital rights advocates[32] and was followed by the appearance of self-referential parody videos on the very subject of Constantin's actions with respect to the parodies.[33]

Godwin's Law states "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one". From this is derived an additional formulation, also encountered online, which states "The first person to mention the Third Reich automatically loses the argument".

In 2010, Hitler has been portrayed by EpicLLOYD in the second episode of YouTube series Epic Rap Battles of History, "Darth Vader vs. Hitler", where he faces Darth Vader (portrayed by co-creator Nice Peter) in a rap battle.[34] This episode became the series most popular episode and it successfully lead to the popularity of the series creators Nice Peter and EpicLLOYD. In 2011, in Season two's first episode, "Hitler vs. Vader 2", EpicLLOYD and Nice Peter reprised their roles in a second rap battle between Darth Vader and Hitler[35] and again for the start of season three, in episode "Hitler vs. Vader 3", which was uploaded on October 7, 2013 on the series YouTube channel.[36]

Salvador Dalí painted several pictures involving Hitler. The Enigma of Hitler (1939) depicts a torn photograph of Hitler on a plate in a typically surreal landscape over which hangs a broken telephone and an umbrella.[37] He also painted the Metamorphosis of the Face of Hitler into a Moonlit Landscape (1958). One of his late works was Hitler Masturbating (1973), depicting just that, with Hitler seen from behind in an armchair in the center of a snow-filled desolate landscape.

Hitler is depicted in a balloon overlooking marching, helmeted troops in the painting Vision of War by Indian artist A. Ramachandran. A picture of him with Gandhi by M. F. Husain was controversial with Hindutva groups in India.

The name "Hitler" is widely used for anyone is overly authoritarian in manner, but it does not have the same negative connotation as in the West. For example in the 1998 film Hitler, the disciplinarian hero nicknamed Hitler is simply a person with staunch traditional values.[38] There are at least three other Indian films entitled "Hitler", in all of which the Hitler character is the hero (Hitler (1996 film); Hitler (1997 film); Hitler Umanath). Hitler Didi (My Sister Hitler) is a TV show about a character with a domineering elder sister.

Hitler is also used as a personal name in India, as in the case of the politician Adolf Lu Hitler Marak. The film Hero Hitler in Love is about a man called "Hitler" who tries to love everyone. Furthermore, the swastika has for centuries been a common symbol in India with positive connotations. According to The Indian Republic,

A more recent cinematic outing- Gandhi to Hitler (2011) was decried for painting the man as a lost hero of India’s struggle for Independence while Hitler memorabilia, including his autobiography Mein Kampf, continues to grow in sales. In 2006, a Mumbai restaurant was forced to change its name from the ill advised "Hitler’s Cross" while in 2012, a clothing store named "Hitler" in Ahemdabad drew considerable anger (tellingly the owner of the unfortunately named store said that he had picked the name in memory of his grandfather, a strict disciplinarian who the family referred to as "Hitler").[38]

According to Navras Jaat Aafreedi, such references to Hitler are not usually linked to pro-Nazi sympathies, but some Hindu nationalist groups see Hitler's use of the swastika as a "great service to Hinduism" and link anti-Semitic ideology to anti-Islamism.[38]

The "Hitler" clothing store in Ahmedabad in Gujarat opened in mid-August 2012. The store immediately became embroiled in controversy over its name.[39] The store's logo even had a swastika embedded in the dot above the "i" in Hitler's name. The owner, Rajesh Shah, told media he did not expect all the commotion. He had chosen the name because the grandfather of his business partner was nicknamed "Hitler" because of his strict demeanor. He added to the media that he also hadn't known about Hitler's killing of millions of people until after the store's opening. He stated he did not intend to change the name unless somebody else paid the expenses. Among the groups that objected to the store's name was the small Jewish community in Ahmedabad. A diplomat at the Israeli embassy in New Delhi said that the embassy would protest in "the strongest terms possible" to the Indian government. The Israeli consul general in Mumbai asked state officials to ensure the store was renamed,[40] but commented that she believes the use of the name most likely is a product of ignorance rather than antisemitism.[41] Reports suggested that the shop owner had agreed to rename the store following an offer by a Jewish organization to pay the costs. In October 2012 the Ahmedabad Municipal authorities allegedly removed the store sign without proper procedure.[42] It was later renamed Gladiator.[43]

Cross Cafe in Mumbai was formerly Hitler's Cross cafe. The business sought to attract attention by using the Hitler theme, and was decorated with Nazi imagery. Actor Murli Sharma attended the opening party; when asked what he thought about the name, he said "I am not really agitated as I have not read much about the man. However, from what I know about Hitler, I find this name rather amusing."[44] Alternative names suggested included Stalin Samosa Shop, Ayatollah Khomeini's Falafels, and Kim Jong's Juicy Juice.[45]

^Levenda, P. (2005). Unholy Alliance: A History of Nazi Involvement with the Occult. Continuum. ISBN0-8264-1409-5.

^A. J. Goldman (3 November 2010). "Why Did Germans Embrace Him?". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 20 October 2014. Nazis are never far from the news here, but 'Hitler and the Germans: Nation and Crimes' is Hitler's biggest coup in Berlin since Mel Brooks's 'The Producers' lit up the German capital last year. The exhibition at the German Historical Museum has attracted a mountain of domestic and international media attention and brisk business.